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West House, SFU’s prototype “laneway house” with energy-monitoring and interactive systems, welcomes its first tenants on April 1.

Relocated West House welcomes first tenants

March 10, 2011

Ura Jones and Mike Higgins were not among the 66,000 visitors to West House, SFU’s prototype “laneway house" showcasing Vancouver's "Greenest City" goals at the LiveCity Yaletown site during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games.

But the couple is “really excited,” says Higgins, to be the first tenants and research subjects chosen to live in the eco-friendly 610-sq.-ft. (56.7-sq.-m) residence for a year at its new East Vancouver location starting in April.

School of Interactive Arts and Technology professors Lyn Bartram and Robert Woodbury and their grad-student team designed Westhouse’s energy-monitoring and interactive home systems based on those they created for North House, the fourth-place finisher at the 2009 International Solar Decathlon in Washington, D.C.

“We plan to study how people actually live in it, how its interactive systems, alternative-energy technologies and small footprint affect the residents’ lives with respect to energy and water use,” explains Bartram.

The house features a joint living, dining and kitchen area, bathroom, bedroom loft, balcony and a 226-sq.-ft. (21-sq.-m) garage with electric car-charging outlet.

Photovoltaic roofing produces all the energy needed to heat and cool the house, run its electric appliances and charge an electric vehicle, sharing any leftover power with the electricity grid.

The kitchen’s dynamic backsplash glows with internal lighting that reflects changes in water, electricity and gas consumption and a hallway command centre lets occupants control everything in-house or remotely from a smart phone.

Bartram and Woodbury’s team worked with Vancouver builder Smallworks and city sustainable development manager David Ramslie to build and prepare the house for the Olympics with primary financing from the federal Western Diversification Program, the city, B.C. Hydro and SFU.

Terasen Gas (now FortisBC), Day4 Energy, Schneider Electric, VerTech Solutions, Embedded Automation and Pulse Energy provided other clean-energy, green-building and smart home control technologies.

Vancouver city council adopted a plan in 2009 permitting homeowners to build laneway rental units behind their homes near a laneway. Several other Lower Mainland municipalities have since followed suit.